A $100 Million Verdict, a Key Piece of Excluded Evidence — and the Lawyers Who Made It Work
- Joe Douglass, 3x Emmy-Nominated Legal Storyteller
- 4 hours ago
- 4 min read
On the day Juan “Mikey” Cruz’s life changed forever, he walked into his warehouse job like any other. By lunchtime, he was paralyzed.
A 1,300-pound pallet of fluorescent light tubes, improperly secured on a high shelf, toppled and crushed his spine. What followed was a five-year legal odyssey that ended with the largest bodily injury verdict in Connecticut history: $100 million, including a $10 million loss of consortium award for his wife, Emily.
The team behind the result, Andrew Garza, Alexa Mahony, and Andrew Ranks of Claggett, Sykes & Garza, shared how they got there on Make Your Case, breaking down the strategy, the setbacks, and the lessons trial attorneys can take with them.
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Dig Past the Obvious: The 'Woodpecker' Approach to Liability
When Cruz’s case first came in, it looked like a workers’ comp claim. But Garza immediately started looking deeper: “Every one of those cases we look at, we ask: Is there something more here?”
That persistence paid off. Instead of stopping at the temp worker who operated the forklift, the same temp who tested positive for cocaine post-incident, they traced the root cause all the way back to a Phillips Lighting warehouse. The key? The product hadn’t been secured to the pallet before it ever reached Connecticut.
Their strategy: “Be the woodpecker,” Mahony said. “If one door closes, try the back door. Then the window. Then the basement. Never stop.”
And they didn’t. Even when Phillips claimed their packaging never used green plastic bands, the same color found at the scene, the team flew out for a firsthand inspection. Days later, they found a matching green band in a trash can on-site. The defense insisted, under oath, they'd never used that color — "not then, not now, not ever." When confronted with photographic proof, their credibility collapsed.
Know What to Show: When Animations Win $100 million verdicts
The facts alone weren’t enough. Focus groups revealed jurors would likely struggle to understand how a forklift in aisle six could dislodge a product in aisle five.
So the team built it — visually.
They created high-fidelity animations using the defense’s own LIDAR scans and warehouse data. One animation showed the actual mechanism of the fall. Another showed what would have happened if the packaging had followed the manufacturer’s own safety rules.
“It was a ticking time bomb,” Garza said. “Any contact, and it was coming down.”
These demonstrations weren’t just illustrative; they were decisive. Once the jury saw the “right way vs. wrong way” side-by-side, the theory of liability clicked. Focus group confusion evaporated.
And if you can’t afford animations? Garza had advice: either partner with firms that can, or talk to vendors who work on contingency. “But don’t ignore the need. If it’s confusing and it needs to be explained, it has to be visual.”
Exclude the Damaging Evidence — On Purpose
The team expected the defense to lean hard on the temp worker’s drug test. But the judge ruled the cocaine evidence inadmissible because there was no direct observation of impairment.
While initially disappointed, the team pivoted quickly and smartly.
The ruling gave them the confidence to settle with the temp agency and employer, removing them from the trial. That meant Signify, formerly Phillips Lighting, couldn’t deflect blame to the empty chairs.
“Our focus groups showed that if the jury heard the word ‘cocaine,’ they’d assign most of the blame to the temp worker,” Ranks said. “Once that was out, we could shift full focus to Signify’s packaging failure.”
Focus Groups, Credibility, and a Case That Became a Story
The team ran multiple focus groups throughout the case, pressure-testing everything from animation clarity to whether to include Cruz’s post-injury suicide attempts.
They were surprised when mock jurors reacted not with judgment, but empathy. “People said, ‘I might feel the same way in his position,’” Mahony explained.
Including that evidence became a turning point, not a liability.
And at trial, their clients, Mikey and Emily Cruz, carried the rest. “They were who they were,” Garza said. “You don’t fake that kind of strength or grace.”
It wasn’t just Mikey’s injury or Emily’s full-time caregiving role. It was their resilience, their honesty, and their humanity. “That verdict,” Garza said, “is a reflection of who they are as people.”
Final Takeaways for Trial Lawyers
Go upstream. Don’t stop at the obvious defendant. Follow the product. Follow the process. Follow the failure.
Use focus groups early and often. They’ll tell you what resonates, and what confuses or alienates jurors.
Don’t let complexity kill your case. If the key fact is hard to explain, show it.
Document everything visually. Even a single green band in a trash can can unravel a defense story.
Don’t settle your best cases. As Garza put it bluntly: “Try your best cases.”
About the Podcast
Make Your Case is a podcast from Clear Eyed Media, where we talk to trial lawyers about the most impactful cases of their careers, and the strategies that led to major results.
I’m Joe Douglass, a former investigative journalist and founder of Clear Eyed Media. Our team helps attorneys present their cases more effectively through video storytelling, whether for settlement, mediation, or trial.
If you’re a trial lawyer with a case worth sharing, email me at joe@cleareyedmedia.com.